Ebooks

Articles specific to writing and publishing ebooks.

Setting Stories Free…For Free

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The following piece is Lynn Viehl’s introduction to a recent reissue of her short story collection, Sink or Swim, which is now available for free on Scribd—a site on which any author can make his or her work available for online reading, whether in full or excerpted form.

In the introduction, Ms. Viehl explains how making her short stories available for free online has opened an invaluable line of communication between herself and her readership and helped to build her readership, yet still meets with the disapproval of her peers in mainstream publishing. 

Nine Years Ago

When my first novel was published in 2000, I decided to try something a little radical to help promote my work. At the time what I did was considered unprofessional and, in some quarters, really stupid: I gave away more original fiction for free to my readers by posting stories on my web site. At the time there were published authors who gave away one or two stories for free during their career, or who made their stories available only to people voting for certain annual industry awards, but that was about it.

Me? I gave away a new story almost every month.

Respect for new ideas was, as always, in short supply. Contempt, on the other hand, came at me from all directions: You can’t put work on the internet and let people read it for nothing. Professional writers have to be paid for their work. It’s the same thing as tossing the rights away. You’ll never be able to sell it to anyone afterward. You’ll ruin your career. You’re an idiot.

They were probably right, but I didn’t care. I had plenty of stories on hand; twenty-six years’ worth, and I wanted people to read them. Aside from the promotional aspects, I was interested in finding out which ideas my readers liked best and wanted to see me develop. I wanted people in other countries to be able to read my work. I also had this crazy theory: if you let people read a story or a novella or even a novel for free, and they like it, they’ll go out and buy the books you have in print. When I proposed this theory, other authors simply patted me on the head. It’ll never work, they told me. No one in publishing is ever going to give away books for free.

I continued giving away free stories for the next nine years. I have been trashed for it, most notably by Romantic Times magazine, whose editor erroneously quoted and attributed to me a SF author’s temper tantrum about other authors who released print work as free e-reads, and how that was undermining all the other authors’ advances (I have never released a print novel as a free e-book. All of my stories published for free on the web are original and exclusive. My publisher does not underwrite the costs and I make no profit from them at all. The editors at Romantic Times should really do a little research before they tar and feather an author.)

In addition to destroying Publishing as we know it, or not, I’ve also published forty-two print novels, and I’ve had seven straight USA Today bestsellers since 2005. Last year I became a New York Times bestselling author with two books on the mass market list, and one in the top twenty rankings.

So much for ruining my career.

I’m not quitting, either. To celebrate the ninth year I’ll be giving away free ebooks on the internet, I’m kicking things off by releasing a revised edition of the very first free e-book I gave away. Sink or Swim, a collection of the stories I published on my old web site, will be only one of the hundreds of free e-books that will be given away by authors and publishing this year. Because as it turns out, what I’ve been doing all these years is not really stupid, and I’m not such an idiot after all. Imagine that.

In this revised edition of my 2001 collection, I’m also going to add a little more information and career perspective on the stories you’ll be reading. Many of them became novels and novels series, thanks to the helpful feedback I received from my 7 readers, and a few are still evolving. To date I’ve never been paid a dime for these stories, but I consider them priceless.

If you’d like to know why, keep reading.

S.L. Viehl
 

Ms. Viehl is a successful, mainstream author who nevertheless has a lot of unconventional ideas about the "rules" of writing, publishing and being a professional author. Publetariat recently ran another piece by Ms. Viehl, in which she deconstructed her first royalty statement on Twilight Fall, her 2008 book which debuted in the top twenty of the New York Times Bestseller List but nevertheless has yet to net her any proceeds.

You can read 

Sink or Swim on Scribd, and learn more about Lynn Viehl and her work on the GenReality site.

Dan Gross Finds the Win-Win Publishing Solution

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This article, by Marion Maneker, originally appeared on The Big Picture website on 4/16/09. In it, Ms. Maneker describes how author Dan Gross exploited ebook technology to get his very time-sensitive book about current economic conditions out to the public far ahead of competing books scheduled for traditional, hard-copy publication.

Here’s an odd turn of events. In the midst of two simultaneous collapses–the finanicial system and the mediascape–Newsweek’s lead financial writer, Daniel Gross has found a way to turn both into a benefit.

It’s no secret that last September’s market swoon started a mad rush in publishing to “tell the story.” Even before the late Summer seize up, books had been commissioned that might explain the unprecedented failure of leadership, markets and regulation.

To date, only William Cohan’s book about Bear Stearns has been published. Charlie Gasparino, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Joe Nocera and Roger Lowenstein–accomplished writers and reporters all–are hard at work trying to wrestle the hydra-headed story onto the page. Will they succeed? And when their books are written will they get the publicity that is so essential to starting the sales cycle?

Dan Gross isn’t waiting to find out. He’s already published Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation as an e-book. Now his publisher, The Free Press, has released the 106-page book as a $9.99 paperback. The Washington Post recently covered the innovative publishing strategy:

E-book exclusives — as opposed to e-books published as spinoffs of a printed version — remain rare, because the market is still too small to sustain them. But Gross’s book offers a revealing window on how such exclusives could reshape “p-book” publishing. The decision to bring “Dumb Money” out in paperback, for example, was made only after the e-book’s appeal had been established.

Gross told the Post:

“If I could do something quickly, get out before all the people who are doing doorstoppers,” he thought, “then I will have had my say, got a book out, everyone will have to account for me or ignore me — and I’ll move on.”

Read the rest of the story at The Big Picture.

Hack Your Way Out Of Writer's Block

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This piece, by Merlin Mann, originally appeared on his 43 Folders website on 11/18/04, and it’s just as useful today as it was then.

I recently had occasion to do some…errr…research on writer’s block. Yeah, research. That’s what I was doing. Like a scientist.

I found lots of great ideas to get unstuck and wrote the best ones on index cards to create an Oblique Strategies-like deck. Swipe, share, and add your own in comments.

  • Talk to a monkey – Explain what you’re really trying to say to a stuffed animal or cardboard cutout.
  • Do something important that’s very easy – Is there a small part of your project you could finish quickly that would move things forward?
  • Try freewriting – Sit down and write anything for an arbitrary period of time—say, 10 minutes to start. Don’t stop, no matter what. Cover the monitor with a manila folder if you have to. Keep writing, even if you know what you’re typing is gibberish, full of misspellings, and grammatically psychopathic. Get your hand moving and your brain will think it’s writing. Which it is. See?
  • Take a walk – Get out of your writing brain for 10 minutes. Think about bunnies. Breathe.
  • Take a shower; change clothes – Give yourself a truly clean start.
  • Write from a persona – Lend your voice to a writing personality who isn’t you. Doesn’t have to be a pirate or anything—just try seeing your topic from someone else’s perspective, style, and interest.
  • Get away from the computer; Write someplace new – If you’ve been staring at the screen and nothing is happening, walk away. Shut down the computer. Take one pen and one notebook, and go somewhere new.
  • Quit beating yourself up – You can’t create when you feel ass-whipped. Stop visualizing catastrophes, and focus on positive outcomes.
  • Add one ritual behavior – Get a glass of water exactly every 20 minutes. Do pushups. Eat a Tootsie Roll every paragraph. Add physical structure.

Read the rest of the article on the 43 Folders website, where you can also find many more informative and insightful articles on both the process and business of being creative.

The Bookish Community Is A Passionate Place And Other Lessons From The Twittersphere

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This piece, by Kat Meyer, originally appeared on the Follow The Reader blog on 4/13/09. In it, Kat discusses what authors and publishers can learn from the #amazonfail debacle—specifically, how Amazon could have avoided the PR nightmare that ensued by actively engaging with authors, readers and publishers via social media .

Hello Dear Readers:

Happy belated chocolate bunny day. Hope you are all recovering nicely.

And with the pleasantries out of the way, I will now begin my lecture on the importance of understanding and participating in social media. This is a lesson that Amazon learned–or at least, we hope they learned–yesterday via the lovely bookish community on Twitter.

If you missed it, and in a nutshell (for details do a quick Twitter search on the term #AmazonFail and/or check out this post on Storm Grant’s blog or Leah Braemel’s timeline of the event):

  1. Many GBLT and erotic themed titles at Amazon.com recently mysteriously stopped displaying their sales rankings (which are a key factor customers consider in making their buying decisions).
  2. The Bookish Twitterverse POUNCED on this — even though the issue itself started a few months back – Sunday it snowballed — and …
  3. Amazon said NOTHING. Amazon was completely absent in droves.

I am not out to demonize or make a scapegoat of Amazon. Amazon may be completely innocent of causing this “glitch,” and there are plenty of theories (conspiracy/technical glitch-based/and otherwise) being bandied about regarding what actually caused the great de-ranking of Easter Sunday, but Amazon definitely is guilty of one thing:  Ignoring the collective online outrage of their customers and content providers during a critical time — which is just sad when you’re talking about a major player in web commerce.

“So, Kat” (you may be asking yourself — which is a funny thing to ask yourself unless your name is Kat — i so crack myself up): “Monday morning quarterback, much Missy?”

And to this I reply, “No. Absolutely not.” And here’s why: while Amazon was noticeably offline and seemingly unaware of this situation, a whole heckuvalot of their indie competitors were savvy enough to be right there on Twitter’s front lines and engaging with the publishers, authors, readers, and other players who were leading this conversation.

Those indies, and their supporters were helpfully (and quite cleverly) offering a suggestion to the angry and frustrated Amazon customers: “Not happy with Amazon? Try us instead!” (The American Booksellers Association even received a nice nod when their acronym was appropriated for the cause –ABA, “anywhere but Amazon.”

The lesson, my bookish buddies, is this — Amazon can’t afford to ignore social media (Twitter, blogs, Facebook, etc.) and neither can you.

Read the rest of the story at the Follow the Reader blog.

Kat Meyer is the founder of The Bookish Dilettante and a regular contributor on the Follow the Reader blog.

The Truth About CreateSpace's Free ISBNs

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If you’ve heard about dire consequences of accepting the free ISBN offered by CreateSpace, or that those free ISBNs aren’t "real" ISBNs, you’re just hearing misinformation perpetuated by people who don’t understand what ISBNs are all about, who’ve never used CS’s services, and/or who have an axe to grind against CS.

 
The ISBN: A Mainstream Tracking Tool
 
The ISBN system was developed in 1966 to facilitate the creation of a single, standardized method publishers, booksellers and libraries could all use to track books.
 
Prior to the advent of the ISBN system, each publisher, bookseller and library had its own, internal tracking system, and none of those systems could easily share information with one another. This didn’t pose much of a problem until the mass-market paperback was introduced by PocketBooks in 1939. Prior to that time, only hardcover books were available to buy and they were very expensive; booksellers didn’t tend to move a lot of copies per month, and it wasn’t too difficult to track those sales or report them back to publishers.  
 
Despite the huge popularity of the paperback book, bookstores snobbishly refused to stock them until the 1950’s, seeing them as somehow inferior to the hardcovers on their store shelves. Nevertheless, millions of copies were flying off the racks at bus stations, drug stores and markets, and the need for some kind of standardized tracking system soon became apparent. 
 
From Wikipedia:
The International Standard Book Number, or ISBN , is a unique, numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966.
 
An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation (except reprintings) of a book. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned after January 1, 2007, and 10 digits long if assigned before 2007.
 
Generally, a book publisher is not required to assign an ISBN, nor is it necessary for a book to display its number [except in China]. However, most book stores only handle ISBN-bearing merchandise.
 
How Important Are ISBNs, Really?
 
Over time, the ISBN has come to be associated with legitimacy in book publishing, since all mainstream-published, hard copy books have ISBNs and the ISBN system has been adopted industry-wide. The claim that a book without an ISBN cannot be stocked by any library or retailer is a myth, however. The fact that an ISBN makes it easier for them to keep track of their books makes them reluctant to work with books lacking ISBNs, but this is a matter of choice on the part of the retailer or library, not a rule backed by law or regulation. This is why indie booksellers are able to stock chapbooks and other books lacking ISBNs.
 
ISBNs are only important to the extent publishers, libraries and retailers rely upon them. For example, since the ISBN system hasn’t been uniformly applied nor enforced where ebooks and audiobooks are concerned—probably because publishers have never believed ebooks or audiobooks will ever comprise a significant piece of the publishing pie—, ISBNs are considered entirely optional for books in those formats.  
 
Are CreateSpace’s Free ISBNs "Real"?
 
R.R. Bowker is the official U.S. ISBN Agency; all ISBNs in the U.S. originate from Bowker, though they can be re-sold once purchased from Bowker.
 
The free ISBNs issued by CS are real ISBNs which CS purchases from Bowker in blocks just like any other publisher. However, when you accept the free ISBN from CS, CS remains the registered owner of that ISBN—ISBN ownership is not transferred to you.
 
Registered ISBN Ownership – Why Does It Matter? 
 
All the false claims I hear about CS books (that they can only be sold on Amazon, that they can’t be listed in Bowker’s or other bookseller catalogs, etc.) stem from the fact that CS remains the registered owner of the free ISBNs it provides. This isn’t as big a deal as it’s made out to be for most individual indie authors, and any author or small publisher who prefers to register her ISBNs in her own name can purchase her own ISBN and barcode block direct from Bowker (as of this writing, it costs US$150) rather than accept the free ISBN from CS.  It’s also worth noting, mainstream authors aren’t the registered owners of their ISBNs either: their publishers are. 
 
Registered ownership of an ISBN only becomes a pertinent issue in three cases: 1) when the book changes publishers/printers, 2) when the publisher or author wants the book added to catalog listings, and 3) in litigation over copyright, publication rights or proceeds from sales.
 
1) ISBNs, Once Registered, Are Non-Transferable
 
Since CS is the registered owner of the free ISBNs it provides, if the author chooses to withdraw his book from CS and publish it elsewhere he must acquire a new ISBN—but this is true of mainstream books as well. 
 
It’s not too likely to happen thanks to contractual obligations, but if Neil Gaiman somehow wrests control of his The Graveyard Book away from Harper and gets a different publisher to put it back into print,  the existing ISBN on the book will remain the property of Harper and the new publisher will have to purchase and assign a new ISBN for their printing of the book. And if that should happen, the old ISBN floating around in the system will cause confusion for people trying to purchase the book; a lookup on the title may point to the old ISBN, and the book published under that ISBN will turn up as "out of print".
 
Even if you elect to withdraw your book from CS and publish it elsewhere for some reason—and let’s face it, once the book is in print and listed for sale, this isn’t a great idea—you didn’t pay anything for CS ISBN so you’re not losing anything by letting go of that ISBN. You’re introducing the possibility of ISBN confusion, but that’s your fault, not CS’s.
 
Some people will protest that a new ISBN must also be acquired if you want to release an updated or revised edition of your CS book, but that’s true for any book within the ISBN system: each edition of any book being offered for mass-market, retail sale in the U.S. must be assigned its own, unique ISBN, regardless of who published it or how. 
 
2) Only The Registered Owner of the ISBN Can Create Catalog Listings
 
Only the registered owner of an ISBN can list the associated book with the Library of Congress, Bowker’s Books In Print (catalog for U.S./Canadian libraries and booksellers), Ingram (another U.S. catalog), or the Nielsen’s catalog (for UK/European libraries and booksellers), and CS elects not to create those listings for any of its ISBNs.
 
Most authors have been told these listings are crucial to their books’ success because libraries and book retailers generally rely on catalogs for all their book orders; if your book isn’t in the catalogs they won’t know it exists, and even if you tell them it exists, they won’t usually order it.
 
They could order direct from CS, but they’re not likely to do so since their entire system of ordering and tracking inventory is based on catalog orders.  Also, orders placed directly with CS aren’t returnable in the same way as books ordered in bulk through catalogs. As a rule, CS books are only returnable if the book is defective or was damaged in transit.
 
However, in my opinion this is a non-issue for the great majority of indie books because libraries and mainstream book retailers aren’t likely to stock our books anyway.
 
It’s true that if your book is listed in the catalogs you can tell potential buyers that your book can be ordered through any bookseller, but if the buyer must place an order for the book (as opposed to picking a copy up off a bookseller shelf), why wouldn’t he place that order on Amazon, where he’ll get it at a lower price and may be able to get free shipping as well?
 
I’m also fairly confident the big, chain bookstore is an endangered species (I blogged about it: Big Chain Bookstore Death Watch), so in my opinion there’s little point in spending much time, money or effort on courting them.
 
There’s one important caveat here. When you publish through CS, an Amazon listing is automatically included as part of the publishing process for free, though you can choose to opt out of the listing. Listings on Amazon’s international sites are not included. In order to get your book listed on any of those sites you must register your book with the Nielsen’s catalog (it’s free), and in order to register with Nielsen’s, you must be the registered owner of your book’s ISBN. 
 
3) ISBNs Are Important In Court
 
Being the registered owner of the ISBNs affords you certain legal protections as a publisher, and helps to establish copyright in the U.S. in cases where copyright hasn’t been registered separately. That’s why the one case where even I think it’s definitely worthwhile to buy your own ISBN/bar code blocks direct from Bowker is if you’re running, or forming, your own small imprint. 
 
Does CS Recycle ISBNs?
 
With respect to the hysteria surrounding CS’s recycling of its ISBNs, that’s all it is: hysteria. So long as your book remains with CS, the assigned ISBN remains with your book. It’s true that when an author withdraws his book from CS after the ISBN has been assigned, CS may re-assign the ISBN to a new book. However, this isn’t the nefarious practice so many naysayers make it out to be.
 
5/4/09 Correction: According to Amanda Wilson, CreateSpace’s Public Relations Manager, CreateSpace does not, and never has, re-assigned its ISBNs. If an author accepts the free ISBN and subsequently removes her book from CreateSpace, the ISBN assigned to her book will go out of circulation.
 
ISBN re-use would definitely be a problem for books listed in any of the mainstream catalogs, because anyone looking up a book by ISBN might get the book to which the ISBN was originally assigned, or the book to which the ISBN was re-assigned. In fact, re-use of ISBNs is strictly prohibited in those listings. I also previously discussed the issue of ISBN confusion on out-of-print books.  
 
Even so, this is not an issue for authors who accept the free CS ISBN because only the registered owner of the ISBN can list the associated book with any catalog services, and CS chooses not to do so. Remember, if those listings are important to an author he can purchase his own ISBN and barcode block direct from Bowker. 
 
Mainstream Concerns Aren’t Always Shared By Indies
 
Most of the worries about CS’s ISBN practices are based on mainstream publishing and book distribution models, which are largely inapplicable to individual indie authors.
 
Since I only publish my own books and wish to remain "out and proud" about my indie status, I elected not to form my own imprint, and I also elected to leave CS listed as the publisher for my books. I have no plans to withdraw my books from CS, and can’t really think of any reason why I might want to do so in the future. I don’t care about getting my books listed in the mainstream catalogs, since I find it’s much easier (and less expensive) to drive buyers to my Amazon listings than it would be to drive them into brick-and-mortar stores.
 
7/27/10 Update: After I published my books with them, Createspace instituted a strict policy whereby Createspace is not to be listed as the publisher anywhere in or on Createspace-produced books; either the author or company/imprint name (if applicable) is to be listed as the publisher of record.
 
True, my books aren’t visible to book buyers outside the U.S., but since I never planned any big international marketing push, nor to release my books in foreign language translations, international listings haven’t been a priority for me to date. Mainstream booksellers will often hold back on international releases of first editions from all but their most popular and bestselling authors as well, so I’m not alone in taking the conservative approach.  I may elect to purchase my own ISBN/bar code blocks when publishing future editions, but on my first editions there was no reason for me to refuse CS’s free ISBNs and I suspect the same is true of most indie authors. 
 
An Opposing Viewpoint
 
In the interests of fair play and full disclosure, I’m providing a link to Walt Shiel’s discussion of ISBNs on his View From The Publishing Trenches blog. Mr. Shiel is adamant in his belief that ISBNs should only be registered to the author or an imprint, and that ISBNs should never be re-used.
 
Note that Mr. Shiel comes from a background in mainstream publishing however. In my estimation, all the arguments he offers are either based on assumptions or realities that are only applicable to the mainstream publishing/bookseller world, or warn against potential problems that are no more likely to crop up for an indie book with the free CS ISBN than for a mainstream-published book with an ISBN registered to the publisher. For example, Mr. Shiel talks about how the author must return to whomever is the registered ISBN owner for subsequent print runs of his book—but the concept of print runs isn’t applicable to POD books, ebooks or digital audiobooks.
 

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April L. Hamilton is an author and the founder of Publetariat. 

Why The Lack Of A Jeff Bezos Dooms Mainstream Publishing

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This piece originally appeared on the Dear Author blog on 4/8/09.

Alternatively, I suppose you could title this piece How Jeff Bezos Pawned Publishing. 

A few weeks ago, a number of mainstream publishers attended SXSW, a festival of music and media culture.  SXSW is peopled with macbooks and iphones and music fans.  SXSW started out as a musical festival and has grown to include seminars on new media.  SXSW held a publishing panel called New Think for Old Publishers.  The publishing panel did not go well as the panelists were idea-bereft and turned the seminar into a mini focus group.

What struck me most out of the controversy that erupted wasn’t the lack of new think for old publishers but that the publishers were seeking new ideas outside [their] corporate structure. In other words, it doesn’t seem that there are forward thinking individuals at the helm of mainstream publishing.  Jeff Bezos, on the other hand, is a long range, innovative planner. Say what you want about Amazon being an evil empire (and they are and can be) but Bezos is a visionary and he has created an internet retail empire in just over 15 years. 

The following is the Bezos timeline (edited to exclude some acquisitions). 

  • 1994: Amazon opens its doors.
  • May 15, 1997: Amazon goes public.
  • 1997: Amazon submits patent application entitled “A Method and System for Placing a Purchase Order Via a Communications Network.”
  • April 1998: Bookpages.com. Largest online bookseller in Great Britain.  Telebooks.com. Largest online bookseller in Germany.  Internet Movie Database. Largest online resource for movies.
  • August 4, 1998: Planet All: a web-based address book, calendar and reminder service and Junglee Corp, a web-based database technology that assists shoppers to find products for sale on the internet.
  • April 1999: Bibliofind.com, Online servicing for finding used, rare and out of print books.
  • September 28, 1999: Amazon granted “1-Click” patent, which “describes an online system allowing customers to enter their credit card number and address information just once so that on follow up visits to the website all it takes is a single mouse-click to make a purchase from their website.”
  • Fourth quarter 2001: Amazon shows first net profit.
  • August 19, 2004: joyo.com.At the time of its acquisition, Joyo.com was the largest online retailer of books, music and videos in China. It became known as amazon.cn.
  • Feb 2005: 43 Things. A website funded by Amazon that gathers information about consumers. Secretly (well, not so secretly as it is all over the Internet that Amazon funds this site).
  • April 4, 2005: BookSurge LLC. Amazon buys a print on demand fulfillment company. Later, Amazon would prevent other POD books [from being] sold through Amazon’s online retail store. Booklocker has sued.

Publetariat editor’s note: Amazon didn’t actually prevent other POD books from being sold through its retail store. Amazon took away the ‘buy’ buttons on POD books not produced by its own publishing interests, BookSurge and CreateSpace, but those ‘outsider’ books could still be sold on Amazon via an Amazon Store. Amazon Store is a service Amazon provides to allow small businesses to sell their wares through Amazon’s website; Amazon lists the items for sale and processes the payments, while the small businesses handle their own order fulfillment.

It’s worth mentioning that there are seller fees associated with running an Amazon Store, and books listed in an Amazon Store are not eligible for all the same promotional perks as those with ‘regular’ Amazon listings (i.e., Amazon discounts, free shipping on orders over $25, Amazon Prime, etc.), so those books are at a sales disadvantage compared to books with ‘regular’ Amazon listings. 

Alternatively, authors and publishers could elect to re-publish their books through BookSurge or CreateSpace (at their own expense) to get their regular Amazon listings back. Also, some POD providers made special arrangements with Amazon to retain their authors’ ‘buy’ buttons and keep their ‘regular’ Amazon listings, typically in exchange for a fee to be paid by the author. 

  • April 16, 2005: Mobipocket. Mobipocket was (and might still be) one of the leading ebook formats out there. Amazon would later use the Mobipocket format as the platform for its own Kindle format, to be used with its Kindle eink reading device.
  • July 6, 2005: CustomFlix. Customflix is a DVD on demand production company.

Publetariat editor’s note: CustomFlix is also a CD on demand and print on demand service provider; its name has since changed to CreateSpace.

  • Fall 2006: Unbox. Amazon unveils its own movie/tv download center.  Later partners with TIVO so TIVO users can download Amazon purchases using TIVO recorders.
  • May 14, 2007:  DPReview. The largest and most trusted review site for digital cameras.
  • August 6, 2007: Amie Street:  Amazon invests in small independent social music retailer.
  • September 2007: Amazon MP3. Amazon opens its digital music store.
  • October 16, 2007: TextPayMe. TextPayMe becomes Amazon payments. It was originally designed to allow payments to be sent and received through your mobile phone.
  • December 7, 2007: Wikia. A wiki service for individuals, Wikia was created by wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales. (Probably designed, like 43 Things, to obtain consumer information).
  • January 17, 2008: Withoutabox: Indie film site for Amazon-owned IMBD.com.
  • February 4, 2008: LoveiFilm. Amazon becomes major shareholder in one of Europe’s largest online rental service for DVDs.
  • June 24, 2008: Twitter. Bezos personally invests in Twitter.
  • June 9, 2008: Fabric.com. (Crafty getting bigger? Amazon becomes one stop shopping for fabric, yarn, and other textiles)
  • July 2008: A Social Gaming Network. Bezos invests in a company that produces casual games for social networking platforms like Facebook. (He has also invested in Atomic Moguls, another startup company designed to bring casual gaming programs to social networks).
  • October 21, 2008: Reflexive Entertainment. Reflexive is a “casusal games developer”
  • January 31, 2008: Audible.com. Largest online retailer of digital audio books.
  • August 24, 2008: Shelfari.com. Social networking for book readers.
  • October 24, 2008: Oprah endorses the Kindle.
  • December 2, 2008: AbeBooks.com. Largest online bookseller of used books. Also a 40% stakeholder in LibraryThing.com.
  • Fiscal Year 2008:  Amazon outsells all other major retailers in the books, music, DVDs area, doing $5.35 billion for North America and $5.73 billion internationally.

In the 10 years since Amazon has gone public, it has become a retailing powerhouse in the publishing industry. Piece by piece, it has bought into or bought up companies that will advance its position primarily by buying people. It seems clear that Amazon believes in buying platforms where the people are.

Mainstream publishing is focused more on creating the market through one hit wonders. Mainstream publishing spends millions on trying to find the next Brown, Rowling, Meyer, or Roberts where as Amazon spends millions on getting the consumers to its webstore. This isn’t to say that I think that publishers should have acquired Fabric.com but it does make sense for them to have acquired companies and technologies for more vertical integration. To have invested in a company like Goodreads.com or a Librarything.com; to have invested in a the secondary book market; to have bought an ereading platform.

Read the rest of this article at Dear Author.

50 Benefits of Ebooks – Reviewed

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This is a cross-posting of a review which originally appeared on The Creative Penn website.

50 Benefits of Ebooks: A thinking person’s introduction to the digital reading revolution where ebooks are low-cost or free. This is definitely a must read for anyone who is remotely interested in where the publishing industry is heading.

 

50 Benefits of Ebooks - click to enlarge

 It is also great to read if you are a fan of ebooks, because you will learn more about them, where to find them and where the industry is heading. Equally, if you are not a fan of ebooks, you need to read it for your education! It is not a technical book – it is packed with literary references and is hugely readable.

Why is it so great?

Firstly, it is only $1 so immediately demonstrates its core argument – you can get the book in PDF or ePub format here. It is a fast, fun read for what some might consider a dry subject. I laughed out loud at points (whilst reading it on my iPhone on the train!)

It does indeed include 50 benefits of ebooks, each one well thought out with literary quotes peppering the text and examples. Did you know that Paulo Coelho published a hardback book in Russia which no one was buying? He “leaked” the ebook as a free download and suddenly the print book started selling. Cory Doctorow also does this, providing ebooks for free to boost print sales.

Some other examples:

· Ebooks keep literature alive – they cannot be burnt or destroyed.

· Ebooks are good for the environment. No dead trees, no pulping of leftover copies, no warehousing or distribution, no landfills full of old books.

· Ebooks defy time – they can be delivered instantly and you can read right now. This allows for faster, news related books to be published and available. No need to wait!

· Ebooks will revive reading and literature. It will no longer just be for the people who can afford a print book. Did you know that in Australia a trade paperback can cost $30 or more? That is hugely expensive for even someone on a good salary. Free or cheap ebooks mean people can read and devour the books they want without worrying about the money.

(I could go on, but you can get the whole book for $1!)

There are also sections on:

· How to read ebooks and where to find free ones

· What the various formats are (very useful!)

· DRM – what it means and why we don’t want it

· Publishing ebooks: 10 tremendous trends in 2009 “Print publishing has one foot in the grave and the other foot on a banana peel”

· Ten Trends To Nourish a Revolution in Reading and Publishing

· Reflections on the importance of reading

Michael Pastore is extremely well read as demonstrated by the breadth of the quotes he includes. He is obviously a great reader, and he makes convincing arguments throughout. The book is also packed with resources and there is also a companion website here.

Ebooks liberate authorsFrom my perspective, ebooks liberate the author and the artist and allow far greater freedom of expression than traditional publishing. They also allow for “the long tail” of niche market books that large publishers would never touch. It levels the playing field and allows the individual author or indie publisher the ability to promote their book alongside the big names.

I do not need convincing of ebooks. I currently read them on my iPhone on Stanza and as PDFs on the phone and the laptop. I would buy a Kindle if they were available in Australia! I publish my own books as ebooks on Smashwords, Lulu and the Kindle. However, I also love print books and I still buy them too. I love to browse a bookshop in real life and on Amazon. I shipped over 1000 books from England to New Zealand and then on to Australia (I must love them!)

This book helped me feel that my experience is actually typical. Most people who read ebooks also read print books. We would like to consume them both ways. There are some books I even have in 3 formats – print, ebook and audio because I believe in the power of the message. However, some books I only want to read in ebook format now. I will not pay $30 for a fiction novel that I will read over a few hours in the hammock, but I will pay $1, or perhaps even $4.99. This book has also convinced me to change my pricing for my ebooks – post on that to come!

These are exciting times for authors and readers. This book just makes me grin and jump up and down with glee!

(so go buy it now and join me in gleefulness!)

Related posts from The Creative Penn:

The future of the book – it’s already here

author 2.0 – how to publish your book, sell and promote it with web 2.0 tools

Joanna Penn is an author, speaker and business consultant based in Australia.

The Authors Guild And Big Publishers Are Working Hard To Reduce Your Readership

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This column is sparked by an article on Teleread, in which The Center For Accessible Publishing argues in favor of the Author’s Guild and publishers who are trying to force Amazon to remove the default Text To Speech (TTS) capability on the Kindle 2. TTS is a technology that allows the print-disabled to hear their Kindle books read to them by the device. 

The AG and publishers argue that individual authors and publishers should have the right to decide on a case-by-case basis which books will have TTS enabled.  You might think that since indie authors aren’t beholden to big publishers and aren’t members of the AG this is a non-issue for us, but if the AG and publishers win this battle authors everywhere—indie and mainstream alike—will see their readership reduced. 

As an author with multiple Kindle books ‘in print’, I can tell you that I am not in favor of disabling TTS. As an avid listener of audiobooks, I can also tell you that not every book made available in print is also made available in audiobook form.

If publishers and the AG only wanted to get TTS disabled on books they are already planning to release in audiobook form that would be fine, but whether they realize it or not they’re working toward having TTS disabled on ALL ebook content, on ALL devices.

Which Is More Likely: Controlled TTS, Or No TTS?

Publishers’ and the AG’s claim that all they want is the right to disable TTS on a book-by-book basis is specious, because it’s a lot cheaper and easier for hardware and software developers to disable TTS entirely than it would be to invest the time and money in developing and administering a tracking mechanism to distinguish TTS-disabled books from TTS-enabled books. Simply disabling TTS altogether carries the added benefit of pre-empting any future legal battles over the issue as well. In this economy, I could hardly blame tech companies for taking the less costly route.

Does TTS Cannibalize Audiobook Sales, As They Claim?

The argument that TTS cannibalizes book sales is also specious, for two reasons.

First, who do they think would buy both an ebook edition and an audiobook edition of the same book? If you want to hear it (and it’s available) you buy the audiobook, if you want to read it you buy the print edition. In order to get the "free" TTS reading on a Kindle 2, print-disabled customers have to buy the Kindle book.

Secondly, as anyone who regularly listens to audiobooks knows, flat narration can ruin the listening experience. If you doubt it, check out some of the (many) reviews at Audible in which an audiobook was panned not for the content of the book, but the quality of the narration.

I have little doubt that given the choice, the print-disabled would much prefer to buy the professionally-produced audiobook that’s being performed by a professional actor. But if the book in question isn’t offered in audiobook format, TTS is a better alternative to refusing to sell them a ‘readable’ book at all, isn’t it?

Author and publisher objections based on TTS voice quality are ridiculous as well. If your book is offered in an audiobook edition, the print-impaired who want the book will buy that edition. And if your book isn’t offered in audiobook edition, it’s impossible for TTS to cannibalize your audiobook sales anyway. Nobody who opts to listen to a book via TTS expects a full audiobook experience, they know it’s a stopgap, but it’s better than nothing. None of my books have been released in audiobook format, and I’m glad TTS is there to make my work accessible to the print-impaired.

This Isn’t Really About TTS, It’s About DRM

All this brouhaha over audio rights is really just a curtain being drawn shut in front of what publishers and the AG are really driving at, and that’s Digital Rights Management (DRM). Their TTS demands are conveniently bundled up in a package that also includes DRM demands. As a group, they’re (needlessly) worried about the theft of digital copies, whether in audio or print form. It’s a pity the needs of the print-disabled are being sacrificed on the altar of bulletproof DRM, especially since bulletproof DRM will never exist so long as there’s one guy in the world with a lot of time, sharp hacking skills, and a desire to get free content.

Studies have shown that the illegal peer-to-peer music file sharing that was rampant a few years ago actually drove more sales of the legal files. Consumers are willing to pay for digital content, so long as it’s easy to do so and the digital content doesn’t place excessive demands or restrictions on them.

Authors, Not Publishers Or The AG, Will Be Left Holding The Bag

The AG and publishers don’t seem to realize it but they’re working very hard at cutting off their noses to spite ALL our faces—publishers, authors and readers alike—, the end result of which will surely be reduced sales and reader alienation. And despite the fact that the Guild and big publishers are driving these demands, when their demands are finally met, individual authors—indie and mainstream—will end up paying the price, and not just in terms of lost sales.

When consumers feel their rights to free use of content they’ve legitimately purchased are being denied, or severely limited, their attention naturally turns to the public face of that content: the author. When publishers and the Guild have succeeded in imposing Draconian DRM measures on digital books, they are not the ones who will end up looking greedy and insensitive to readers: authors will take that hit. The Reading Rights coalition addresses its ‘open letter’ of protest to authors, not publishers or the AG.

As an indie author, I strongly object to publishers and the AG taking a position that will almost certainly force developers to abandon TTS, because now they’re infringing on MY right as an free agent to make my work available to whomever I want in whatever form I want.

Part of my motivation for choosing the indie path was freeing myself from outside control over my work, but it seems that the gatekeepers of publishing are bound and determined to drag all authors everywhere down with them. With TTS disabled the potential audience for my books will instantly go down, and while I’d very much like to make audio versions available, I lack the time and skills to produce my own audiobooks or podcasts at present.

Way to go, AG and publishers. With mainstream publishing in crisis, I’d expect you to be focusing your energies on identifying ways to attract readers rather than piss them off. 

Check out the Reading Rights website to learn more about the TTS debate, to find out how you can join in the protest, and to sign a digital petition asking publishers and the AG to drop their fight against TTS. This Tuesday, April 7, Reading Rights will be picketing the Authors Guild office in New York from noon to 2pm. The group is also planning to protest at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA the weekend of April 25 – 26.

Most authors, indie authors in particular, aren’t well-informed about what the AG and publishers are up to in this battle, and haven’t thought about the negative impact on authors everywhere if publishers and the AG win. Please share this article far and wide, wherever authors are likely to see it: link to it, Digg it, tweet it, fave it, tag it…just get the word out however you can. Don’t let the AG and mainstream publishers—groups with which indies aren’t even affiliated—get away with claiming to speak on behalf of authors everywhere.

Click here to share this on Twitter!

April L. Hamilton is the author of The IndieAuthor Guide and the founder of Publetariat. Her latest book is From Concept to Community.

Have Ebooks Already Gone Mainstream?

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Alright folks. Turn your clocks forward. If you’re waiting for ebooks to go mainstream, it may have happened already.

 

The IDPF reported yesterday in an email to members (see below for snippets of the email) that wholesale ebook sales for January 2009, as reported by the American Association of Publishers, jumped 173 percent over the same period one year ago to $8.8 million.

If you annualize that over 12 months, as I did at left, it means wholesale ebook sales are on track to surpass $100 million in 2009.

I’ll give you a minute to lift yourself up off the floor, because I’m not done yet.

As I reported on the Smashwords Blog in my previous analysis in January, the numbers are even more interesting when you dig beneath the surface. The rate of growth is accelerating. We saw some signs of this in the final months of 2008, but with January, the numbers shot through the roof.

The chart at left examines the quarterly sequential revenue growth over the last two years, and by sequential I mean Q2 to Q3, Q3 to Q4, etc. This provides a measure of how one quarter relates to the quarter immediately preceding it.

When you see sequential growth accelerating, something interesting is happening, especially when the growth is accelerating off of an ever-increasing base.

For Q1 2009, I took the $8.8 million for January and assumed February and March would be the same. Based on what appears to be happening, I’m probably overly conservative. Still, the number shows an estimated 57 percent sequential increase for Q1 2009 over Q4 2008. In other words, 2009 is going to be a break out year for ebooks.

Next, I analyzed what the numbers would look like if the sequential quarterly growth rate slows to 25 percent per quarter for the rest of 2009, again assuming January 2009 is representative of where 2009 is headed (of course, there’s a chance January was a wild fluke, in which case all my estimates are worth the price you paid to read them). With 25 percent quarterly sequential growth, wholesale US ebook sales will be over $150 million. And unlike paper books, these aren’t books that are shipped and counted as sold before they’ve actually been sold through to consumers. This is actually sell-through (someone correct me if I’m wrong). If you further assume, as the IDPF notes in their email below, that retail sales are about twice wholesale sales (because the retailer marks up the price paid to the publisher), retail sales could reach $300 million for 2009.

The email from the IDPF:
 

Dear IDPF Members,

eBook sales statistics for January 2009 have been released from the Association of American Publishers (AAP) who collects these statistics in conjunction with the IDPF. Trade eBook sales were $8,800,000for January, a very significant 173.6% increase over January 2008. Just a reminder these are wholesale revenues reported from 13 participating Trade Publishers.

Please keep in mind the following:

This data represents United States revenues only. This data represents only trade eBook sales via wholesale channels.

Retail numbers may be as much as double the above figures due to industry wholesale discounts.

This data represents only data submitted from approx. 12 to 15 trade publishers.

This data does not include library, educational or professional electronic sales.

The numbers reflect the wholesale revenues of publishers. The definition used for reporting electronic book sales is "All books delivered electronically over the Internet OR to hand-held reading devices" .

The IDPF and AAP began collecting data together starting in Q1 2006. 

You can examine the IDPF data for yourself at

http://www.idpf.org/doc_library/industrystats.htm

.

 

So what do you think, have ebooks gone mainstream? I think for authors and publishers who release in e-, ebooks have gone mainstream. Amazon reported in February that for books they sell in both e- and p-, they’re deriving 10 percent of sales from e-. That’s huge. It means if you offer your books in e-, readers will come. I’ve seen other reports of similarly large percentages from progressive publishers such as O’Reilly who are also reaping big sales increases on the e- side.

 

If you’re an author or publisher, and your books aren’t already listed on Smashwords, why not? Our 85 percent net to the author/publisher beats Amazon by a wide margin. Just sayin’.

 

Easy Upgrade from 6.9 to 6.10 For People Who Don't Know PHP/Linux, Can't Use Shell Commands or Don't Have A Development Sandbox

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Note: while this article may seem very long, it’s only because I’m making every effort to clearly detail every step of my process for people who, like me, don’t have the Linux or php skills to easily understand what the heck everyone is talking about in the 6.10 upgrade articles and posts on drupal.org. In actuality, the upgrade itself will probably require less time than it takes to read this article. But DO read it, all the way through to the end, BEFORE you begin your upgrade.

Also note, you must be able to login to your site with full admin privileges for these steps to work; the user account”1” is the first user account created in a drupal installation, and it’s usually the admin account.

Do I REALLY Have To Upgrade? So Soon?

I set up my Drupal site on 1/23/09, so when I started getting dire warnings about an urgent security upgrade a month later I was both annoyed and concerned. Annoyed at having to do what seemed like a total re-install when I’d just gotten my new site customized the way I wanted it, and concerned about the potential to totally screw up my site in the upgrade process. However, since the upgrade includes a critical security fix, I knew the upgrade was not optional.

But I Don’t Know Anything About Linux or php, And I Don’t Have A ‘Development Sandbox’, Whatever That Is!

Most of the info I found on drupal.org on simplifying the upgrade process requires the site admin to write scripts or run them, and this won’t work for me since I don’t know anything about Linux commands and don’t have easy access to run scripts against my server anyway. Well, I found a way we Linux-illiterate people can complete the 6.9 – 6.10 upgrade with minimal site impact and no need to do the complete uninstall/re-install described in the upgrade.txt instruction file.

If You Haven’t Followed Drupal Best Practices, I Can’t Help You

First things first: While my Drupal install has been customized with contributed modules, autoresponders, custom logo, etc., I have followed Drupal best practices from day one by not making any modifications to the core software and keeping my customizations in the ‘sites/all’ folder of my installation. If you haven’t done likewise, the process I followed won’t work for you.

All Sites Are Unique: Your Upgrade Won’t Be Exactly The Same As Mine

While the steps I’m about to describe worked perfectly for me, every install and every server setup is different, so your mileage may vary. Finally, while the process I came up with was very easy and safe, it was also a little tedious. For me, tedious was far preferable to risky, and completely uninstalling and re-installing my site software seemed like VERY risky overkill.

Do You Really Have To Uninstall 6.9 Completely, Then Do A Full 6.10 Install?

In a word, no. From all I’d read on drupal.org I knew the 6.10 upgrade would only affect certain files and folders, and I also knew all my site’s content is stored in my site database, NOT the files and folders to be upgraded. I decided to limit my upgrade to identifying changed files and folders, backing up my current versions of those files/folders, and copying the 6.10 versions to my live server while leaving everything else alone. Here we go.

ONE TO TWO WEEKS PRIOR TO UPGRADE

Schedule your upgrade for the day and hour when site traffic is lowest (just check your site stats to decide), and post a notice on the front page of your site alerting your site visitors that the site will be taken offline for maintenance on the appointed day and time at least one week before you plan to do the upgrade.

You can optionally send out a blanket email to all your registered members too, but you should still post a notice on the site to notify both registered members and anonymous site visitors. This is especially important for new sites, since you’re still trying to build traffic and don’t want any of your site ‘regulars’ to find the site unexpectedly down and assume you’re no longer in operation.

A FEW DAYS PRIOR TO SCHEDULED UPGRADE

1) Download the 6.10 install package to your local machine; the download link is available on the front page of www.drupal.org when you login.

2) Unpack the 6.10 install package on your local machine in a location completely apart from your site setup and leave the window with the files in it open.

In my case, while I don’t have a Linux development sandbox or development server installed locally, I still have a local directory for my site which I use for purposes of developing and storing custom HTML pages and uploading files to my live drupal site. I unpacked the 6.10 install package entirely outside that directory on my PC, to avoid any confusion between the 6.10 files and the 6.9 files.

3) Open the file manager for your live, drupal 6.9 site in a separate window, in whatever way you usually do. I can do this via my locally-installed FTP program or via /cpanel >File Manager on my host server (my site is hosted by HostGator).

4) With the two windows open side-by-side, compare the date and time stamps on every file in your main installation directory (the one with the following folders: includes, misc, modules, openx, profiles, scripts, sites and themes) and each subdirectory to identify which files have changed in 6.10—and which ones haven’t.

Any file in the 6.10 window that has a date and timestamp older than the 6.9 version of the file you’re already running has not changed in 6.10. Conversely, any 6.10 file that has a more recent date or timestamp than your corresponding 6.9 file HAS changed.

Sorting the 6.10 files in reverse order of date/timestamp will bring all the changed files to the top of the list. I also found that printing out screenshots of the two windows helped a lot with this. When I identified a file that needed to be upgraded, I marked it with a highlighter on my printed screenshots for future reference when doing the actual upgrade. Alternatively, you can make a written list of changed files. Just make sure that you have some kind of written or printed file list to work with during the upgrade.

In my comparison I found the following file/folder differences between 6.9 and 6.10, but again, since your install isn’t exactly the same as mine, don’t just rely on my findings here. To be absolutely sure you’re catching every file needed for YOUR upgrade, you must go through the comparison process on YOUR files.

/www
The only files that changed in the main, /www directory were CHANGELOG.txt and install.php

/includes
actions.inc, bootstrap.inc, common.inc, database.inc, form.inc., install.inc, language.inc, menu.inc, module.inc, theme.inc

/misc
No changes to files in this folder

/modules
All modules except locale, openid, throttle and translation.

Within the module folders it was typically just the .info file that had changed, but I decided I would plan to go ahead and replace all my 6.9 /module folders with 6.10 folders rather than go to all the trouble of replacing individual 6.9 files in each /module folder with the changed, 6.10 versions. This was a safe thing for me to do because I have not made any changes or customizations in the /modules directory.

/openx
No changes to files in this folder

/profiles
No changes to files in this folder

/scripts
No changes to files in this folder

/sites
No changes to files in this folder

/themes
No changes to files in this folder

As you can see, the majority of 6.9 files are unaffected by the upgrade. When I saw this I felt more strongly than ever that I didn’t want to risk a complete uninstall/re-install of my site software.

AN HOUR OR MORE BEFORE SCHEDULED UPGRADE

1) Use your usual file manager or FTP client to download backup copies of all the 6.9 files you’ll be replacing with 6.10 files; store the backup copies in a new folder on your local hard drive, separate from your local 6.9 site directory (if you maintain a local 6.9 directory).

2) Familiarize yourself with the /admin/settings/site-maintenance page on your live 6.9 site. This is the page where you will take your site offline for the upgrade. You can go ahead and customize the ‘site offline’ message visitors will see during the upgrade now if you like, but DO NOT take the site offline yet.

UPGRADE TIME

1) Go back to /admin/settings/site-maintenance on your live site. If you haven’t already done so, customize the maintenance message site visitors will see while the site’s off-line. Take a deep breath and click the radio button that will change your site’s status from online to off-line, and save your changes.

2) Verify that your site is offline and your maintenance message is displaying to users. You can either open a window in a different browser program, in which you’re an anonymous site visitor, or you can logoff your live site and then re-load the home page of your site.

I have both Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers installed. I always login as site admin in one browser program, but remain an anonymous site visitor in the other. This saves me the trouble of logging out and back in every time I need to verify what anonymous site users will see. Besides, however unlikely it is, I can’t shake a nagging fear that once my site is off-line and I’m logged out as site admin, I may not be able to get back into the site’s admin account.

You may find, as I did, that the maintenance message only displays briefly before your site banner/logo loads on top of the message, making it unreadable. I elected not to bother with trying to fix this since I knew I’d scheduled my upgrade for the time when site traffic is lowest, and I didn’t plan to keep the site offline for long. I figured that fixing the problem probably would’ve taken longer than the entire upgrade.

3) Back up your site’s database, again, in a location separate from any local 6.9 install you may have. You may have to download a copy of the database via FTP, or your hosting company may provide backup tools. In the case of my host, HostGator, I can access backup tools via /cpanel and I’m given the option of backing up the entire site or just individual files, folders or databases.

Notice that unlike the 6.10 upgrade.txt instructions, I am not advising you to disable custom modules before proceeding. Since you’re not doing a full uninstall of 6.9 followed by a full install of 6.10, you’re keeping the site offline, and you’re leaving your browser window closed during the upgrade, it’s not necessary.

4) Close all other programs and windows on your local machine to free up system resources, including the browser window where you’re logged in to your site as admin, if it’s still open. Using your usual FTP client, upload the 6.10 folders and files you’ve previously identified as changed to your live, 6.9 installation, checking each one off your written list or screen shots as you go. If prompted to replace pre-existing files or folders on the server, answer “yes” to all.

IMPORTANT!! Don’t try to do this as a batch job: upload one folder or one file at a time! If the upload fails before everything is copied over, you will have a major chore to figure out which new files were copied over and which weren’t. You may find your site is irreparably broken and you’ll have to go through the full 6.9 uninstall followed by a full 6.10 install.

When you’re done, double-check the files and folders on your server to ensure you’ve uploaded all the files you previously identified as changed in 6.10.

5) Return to your live site and run update.php. You do this by entering the URL, http://www.yoursite.com/update.php, in which you’ve replaced “yoursite.com” with the name of your site.

6) You will be warned that it’s important for you to have backups of your site files and database before proceeding. If you’ve followed these directions, you have those backups and can safely proceed.

7) The update job doesn’t take long to run. When it’s finished, you’ll see status messages indicating updates have been applied.

8) If you don’t see any error messages following the update, your upgrade is complete and was successful. You can return to /admin/settings/site-maintenance to put your site back online and remove the maintenance announcement on the front page of your site. Finally, check the site as an anonymous user to verify everything is working as it should.

9) If you DO see error messages, I’m afraid I can’t help you debug them. However, I can tell you how to get your site back to where it was before the upgrade, and it’s easy.

Just copy your 6.9 backup files, folders and database back to your live server and run update.php again. Afterward, return to /admin/settings/site-maintenance to put your site back online, remove your maintenance announcement from the front page of your site, and check the site as an anonymous user as in step #8 above.

From there, your best bet is probably to schedule a new upgrade date and time, and follow the upgrade.txt instructions provided with the 6.10 package to the letter when you do that upgrade.

In my case, it only took about half an hour from the time I took the site offline to the time I was finished spot-checking the upgraded site.

Click here to read a related discussion thread on drupal.org.

Click here to share this article on Twitter!

 

April L. Hamilton is the founder of Publetariat and the author of From Concept To Community: How I Built An Online Community And Took It Viral In 25 Days With Little Money And No SEO. The book is available in trade paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon, and in various other ebook formats on Smashwords.

Why Google Book Search Is A GOOD Thing For Indies

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You’ve probably been hearing a lot about Google Book Search lately. Mainstream publishers and authors are variously confused, angry or nervous about GBS, but for indie authors and small imprints, it’s all good.

What’s This All About, Then?

From Wikipedia:

Google Book Search is a tool from Google that searches the full text of books that Google scans, converts to text using optical character recognition, and stores in its digital database. The service was formerly known as Google Print when it was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2004. When relevant to a user’s keyword search, up to three results from the Google Book Search index are displayed above search results in the Google Web Search service (google.com).

A user may also search just for books at the dedicated Google Book Search service. Clicking a result from Google Book Search opens an interface in which the user may view pages from the book as well as content-related advertisements and links to the publisher’s website and booksellers. Through a variety of access limitations and security measures, some based on user-tracking, Google limits the number of viewable pages and attempts to prevent page printing and text copying of material under copyright.

GBS Offers Benefits To Authors And Publishers

A Google Books Page

As shown above (click image to view larger), book search results served up by GBS include a cover image, table of contents, keywords from each chapter, excerpts from throughout the book, and where-to-buy links. GBS provides publishers and authors with a new avenue to help consumers find their books, read excerpts, and even buy those books.

In addition, authors and publishers who sign up to be a GBS Partner (required if you want to upload your own books) receive additional benefits.  Partners can view reports containing detailed information about when and how their GBS books have been accessed, as well as how frequently GBS users click on the where-to-buy links for their books. GBS book pages also contain Google AdSense ads which have been targeted based on the content of the book currently being viewed, and GBS Partners receive a portion of the ad revenue Google earns for click-throughs on those ads.

So What’s The Problem?

Exposure plus maybe enough ad revenue to buy yourself a fancy coffee once in a while…what’s not to love? If you’re an indie author or small imprint, nothing. But the mainstream has four major beefs with GBS: Google didn’t ask their permission, GBS muddies the question of when a book goes out of print, GBS introduces some level of copyright risk, and publishers and authors have no control over how GBS presents their books to the public.

Google Decided It’s Better To Beg Forgiveness Than Ask Permission

When Google came up with the idea for GBS they realized it would only work if the majority of published books are part of the GBS database, because the more complete the database, the more useful and trustworthy it becomes. Rather than go to all the publishers of the world and ask if GBS could please scan each publisher’s books into their database, Google simply issued a public statement of their intent to do so. GBS also included functionality that allows authors and publishers themselves to upload books directly to the database.

Legal wrangling eventually resulted in a settlement agreement that allows authors and publishers to opt their books out of GBS, but the default setting for all books is opt-in: unless you specifically take action to opt out per the terms of the agreement, your books are fair game to be scanned or uploaded to the GBS database. Though the agreement was hard-won, most major publishers are not choosing to exercise the opt-out option, and that’s making many mainstream authors very nervous.

This is a non-issue for indies, for two reasons. First, indie books are very low on GBS’ list of priorities where getting content for their database is concerned, and are therefore only likely to find their way into the GBS database if we upload them ourselves (effecting a post-facto ‘opt-in’). Secondly, if you don’t want your books in the database but find that someone else has scanned or uploaded them, GBS provides a simple means to have them removed. Since we retain all rights to our work, we don’t have to go along with a publisher’s decision to opt in or out of GBS.

When Does A Google Books Book Go Out Of Print?

Mainstream publishing contracts typically stipulate that when a publisher stops manufacturing or distributing a given book for sale, publication rights for that book revert to the author. The author is then free to re-publish the book himself, or through a different publisher. Mainstream authors are worried about the possibility that a book in the GBS database could be construed as “in print” indefinitely, though there have yet to be any court cases to settle the matter.

Indies don’t have to worry about it, because we retain all publication rights to our work from day one. Even if the courts eventually find GBS books meet some legal definition of the term “in print”, thereby allowing publishers to retain publishing rights so long as the books are in the GBS database, it won’t matter to us because we are our own publishers.

Does GBS Pose New Copyright Risks?

Publishers and authors are also worried about the risks of copyright infringement introduced by allowing an outside party to store the entire text of their books in a database, and by allowing excerpts of those books to be displayed online. While GBS provides excerpts, cover images and bibliographic data for every book in its database, it does not provide the full text of any book to GBS users, nor does it provide any easy means to download or even print any of the content shown onscreen.

Given enough time, a motivated, technically skilled pirate could theoretically steal the excerpts and cover images for re-use in some illegal fashion, but the same is possible for any book on a public library shelf. If anything, public libraries and book lending among friends pose a greater piracy threat, since anyone in possession of the entire book can scan or copy its pages for illegal re-use.

There’s also the omnipresent threat posed to any online system: that hackers may find a way to get into the database and download entire files—in this case, books—for nefarious purposes. Possible, yes. Likely, no. And unless you’re a well-known or best-selling author, the risk that a hacker might choose to copy and illegally redistribute your book is very, very small. If you’re worried about GBS security and find your book becoming so popular that piracy is a legitimate concern, you can always just pull it out of the GBS database.

Presentation And Advertising

GBS serves up book search results in their own, fixed format, and also includes Google AdSense text ads targeted according to the content of the book being displayed on the right-hand side of the page. Authors and publishers have no control over the book display format or content, nor over the advertising display or content.

Those who want to micromanage their book’s image and exclude outside advertising are not pleased, but they don’t seem to realize that so long as their books are available for sale through any online retailer, matters of display and advertising are out of their hands anyway.

Any book available online can be found using a simple Google search, and the results page for any Google search includes targeted Google AdSense advertising links on the far right-hand side. Authors and publishers have no control over the ads, nor do they receive any portion of the revenue earned on those ads.

Furthermore, once the searcher clicks through on a link to Amazon, Borders, B&N or wherever else, the book they’re looking for will be displayed in that store’s standard format, over which authors and publishers have no control. Book listings in online stores almost always include advertising in the form of cross-sell links to other books in which the searcher may be interested—typically, competing books from other authors.

Another complaint in this area is the revenue split on advertising displayed on GBS book pages. Recall that Google splits GBS ad revenue with GBS Partners, and in the case of a mainstream publisher, the publisher will be the GBS Partner, not the author. To me, this seems a matter to be settled between mainstream authors and their publishers rather than a GBS issue.

Yet again, indies have no need for concern here. We can sign up to become GBS Partners and keep all of the ad revenue split for ourselves.

Still Not Sure Whether To Upload Your Books?

If you have concerns about the risks and possible ramifications of allowing your books to be listed on GBS, carefully review the GBS Program Policies and the settlement agreement with an attorney versed in matters of copyright and publishing law before making any decisions. You might also want to read this Authorweb piece on GBS.

One more thing – if you’re self-publishing in the hopes of attracting a mainstream publisher, it’s probably best to err on the side of caution and leave your books out of GBS since you can’t predict how a future publisher with which you may have dealings will feel about GBS.

My Experience With GBS

I’ve had my novels, Adelaide Einstein and Snow Ball, listed on GBS since May of 2008.  Joining the Partner program was very easy and GBS dovetails seamlessly with other Google services I already use like gmail, AdSense and the like.

From the time I uploaded the books it took about three months for them to show up in GBS searches, but the process is probably bit speedier now that the settlement agreement has again freed GBS to focus the bulk of their energies on scanning and uploading content.

My Partner reports show I’m getting a smattering of page views, but if viewers are subsequently buying my books, they’re not using the GBS where-to-buy links to do so. I’ve also yet to see any ad revenue from GBS. I suspect this meager traffic is due in large part to the fact that while GBS is widely known and discussed in author and publisher circles, the general public is largely unaware of its existence.Go ahead, ask a non-bookish friend or family member if they know about Google Book Search.

As the GBS database grows, and given Google’s track record of success in rolling out new products and services, GBS will probably become as ubiquitous as Google search and gmail eventually.

I have no regrets about listing with GBS. I subscribe to the Just Get It Out There In Front Of As Many Eyeballs As Possible school where my books are concerned, and GBS is poised to deliver quite a few eyeballs indeed.

April L. Hamilton is the author of The IndieAuthor Guide and the founder of Publetariat. Her latest book is From Concept to Community.

The Future of Publishing, As Seen From The Future of Publishing

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This piece originally appeared on The Bookish Dilettante on 2/23/09.

Today – the Bookish Dilettante happily yields the floor to a new voice – Mr. Aaron Hierholzer. Aaron, a young gun in the publishing world, attended this year’s TOC conference, and has graciously offered up his observations. With no futher ado, Mr. Aaron Hierholzer…

Last November, former Collins publisher Steve Ross said, “It’d be absolutely terrifying to be starting out now, to be young and to not have the benefit of years, if not decades, of perspective . . . I would have seriously considered leaving book publishing." Days later, literary agent Esther Newburg said, “I would hate to be starting out in the [book] business.”

What’s a person with a passion for bringing books to readers to do when the old guard implies that running for the hills might be best? What’s one to do when you find out that neither MGMT, Diplo, nor a good chunk of your acquaintances even read books? What’s one to do when one could compile a lengthy volume of humorless “end of publishing” articles from the past four months, alone?

Attending "O’Reilly’s Tools of Change" conference isn’t a bad place to start. I got to go earlier this month, and the enthusiasm for the future of books both p- and e- was truly infectious, and helped dispel some of the gloominess I was feeling about Bookland.

Overall, TOC’s gloom-dispelling ability was directly proportional to its specificity: anyone who’s been paying attention knows that reading is increasingly a social act, that one can instantly access almost any fact on a mobile phone, and that Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 15th century. These harped-upon broad strokes grew tiresome, and when news that HarperCollins terminated its Collins division spread through the conference on Tuesday, it seemed there were more pressing questions to address. Questions like, "where’s the money going to come from when most of the knowledge of mankind can be found for free via Google?" Questions like, "should I run for the hills after all?"

Thankfully, many presenters did get to the nitty-gritty and the applicable, talking about things like how we’re going to get readers to value (and therefore be willing to pay for) digital content. I wish the “Success Stories and Failures in Digital Publishing” panel could have lasted all day—the skipped slides by rushed presenters were heartbreaking. Hachette’s Stephanie van Duin, Macmillan’s Sara Lloyd, and Lexcycle’s Neelan Choksi all talked knowledgably about the pricing and profitability of digital content, and about the fearlessness it will take to find a workable solution.

In nerve-wracking times such as these, staying focused on why we publish books in the first place is a good alternative to worrying about the end times of reading. And the point that kept striking me over and over was simple: readers come first. Publishers have got to treat the reader, the end user, with utmost respect. That can take any number of forms—not publishing absolute dreck; not treating the purchaser like a potential thief by imposing draconian DRM; not making digital offerings confusing, and frustrating, and messy, and overly expensive.

Read the rest of the article on The Bookish Dilettante.

Finding Value In Author Web Sites

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This article, by Judith Rosen, originally appeared on Publisher’s Weekly on 12/15/08. 

Now that just about every writer has a Web site, blog and/or MySpace, Facebook and GoodReads pages, are they finding the effort of keeping up with it all worthwhile? Do authors even need a Web presence? And if so, is it worth the $3,000 to $35,000 fee that professional Web site creators/marketers charge?

“Yes,” said Steve Bennett, who has written more than 50 books and is president of AuthorBytes, which builds and markets author Web sites. “A Web site is your locus in space. It’s not that people can’t get basic author information on Amazon. But they’re looking for extras. The Web has changed the way we learn about products and services; it’s hard to imagine succeeding without it.”

There’s little question about the value of author Web sites for Carol Fitzgerald, founder and president of the Book Report Network, either. As she sees it, having a Web presence gives writers a chance to extend the conversation with their readers. When her company signs an author, she reads their books to make sure that the site her company creates captures the same attitude and tone, beginning with the welcome letter on the home page. Fitzgerald is less concerned about authors having a message board or book trailer than with providing a go-to place for fans.

“If you’re going to get a book review over the Web,” she said, “you want to be sure to have a Web site to send people to, not just the publisher’s site.” She does have one caveat, though: don’t overdo the Flash. “If I’m waiting for a site to load, it ought to be pretty good,” said Fitzgerald. “Like it ought to clean the floor.”

In the absence of clear proof that an expensive, Flash-driven site makes any difference when it comes to sales, some authors, even well-known ones, are opting for a bare-bones Web presence. Susan Cheever, who was given her first Web site 15 years ago, chose a no-frills, DIY Authors Guild site, where writers pay up to $9 a month for Web hosting.

She said that she would upgrade if there were any way to prove that sites sell books. In addition to saving money, the Authors Guild arrangement allows Cheever to update her site (www.susancheever.com) directly, unlike many Web services.

Not that she changes it often—her most recent book, Desire: Where Sex Meets Addiction, is still listed on her home page as due out in the beginning of October. Nor is there a blog. Still, for her the site does what she wants: it enabled this reporter to track her down at Yaddo, and she uses it to sign up speaking engagements.

Despite Cheever’s decision not to blog, both Bennett and Fitzgerald argue that a blog is the easiest way to keep sites fresh. And there’s no reason the blog has to be only about the book; at least that’s James Frey’s approach at BigJimIndustries.com. On his blog, he collects funny news items, videos he likes and stray Web commentary.

But it’s not just bestselling writers who use the Web to keep their names out in the blogosphere. Relatively unknown authors, especially nonfiction writers, have found the Web to be an effective tool for generating interest in their work. Months before her combination travelogue/humor book Queen of the Road came out in June, Doreen Orion used her advance from Broadway to hire AuthorBytes to create QueenoftheRoadtheBook.com.

Her objective, she said, was to have a site that would give people a sense of her book without reading it. She chose to have every Web page look like a postcard sent from a different destination, with a stamp of her wearing a tiara.

Although Orion estimates that she spent eight hours a day for six months before her book came out working on the site and posting YouTube videos, she said the money and time were well spent. She credits the site with getting her a speaking engagement at A Great Good Place for Books in Oakland, Calif., as well as making her book a reading group selection. She viewed her advance as “my book’s money. If you don’t have a really good Web site, you’re hampering yourself.”

Clearly something’s working. Queen of the Road is in its sixth printing and has close to 38,000 copies in print.

Read the rest of the article at Publisher’s Weekly, and also take a look at this companion article about filedbyauthor for a new, totally free option for creating your own author web presence.

Interview With Doyce Testerman – Twitter As A New Medium In Authorship, Pt. 2

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Doyce Testerman is an author who’s writing experimental fiction on Twitter, the micro-blogging web application which allows a maximum length of 140 characters (including spaces).  Instead of just ‘tweeting’ a novel one line at a time however, Doyce tweets in the character of Finnras, the protagonist of his story.  In this interview series, Doyce talks about the project. You can read part one in the series here.

P: How do you feel the @finnras project has informed or influenced your more traditional prose, if at all?

DT: One of the things I really, truly appreciate about writing Adrift (what I call the larger ‘Finnras story’) has been the constraint I have to work under to get meaningful prose delivered in 140 characters. I can be wordy when I want to be (as you might have noticed), and writing via Twitter has really helped me work on concise, specific language. There’s a lot of precision required, and some verbal gymnastics. I love that challenge.

It’s also relaxing. So much of what we write is "so many hundred pages"; "so many thousand words" – having that daily, miniature project to work on is like a kind of meditation. I compared it to working on a bonsai before, and that’s a fair comparison — I can step back from whatever huge landscaping job is my current ‘main project’ and just sit quietly and work on a tiny thing.

It’s a little more fun than a bonsai, though; sometimes it tells me jokes.

P: Will the @finnras project continue indefinitely, or do you have a specific endpoint in mind?

DT: I have specific things I really hope I get to see. If pressed, I could even describe the progress from the beginning to end as a series of ‘books’, starting with Adrift, but it’s not a perpetual story — there’s a very definite end point off in the future. That isn’t to say that I know what’s going to happen… but I do know where.

P: What would you say is the greatest benefit you’ve seen from the project?

Every day, it reminds me why I write. It makes me laugh, makes me happy, sometimes makes me sad. That sounds corny as hell, but it is what it is.

I think that you can sometimes lose track of why you’re writing in the middle a big first draft – you can easily lose track of why you’re writing when you’re in the middle of second or third or mumble-teenth revision of a story you’ve been living with for a couple years. Doing this project is worth it, just for the daily reminder ‘why’.

It’s also become a good warm-up for me — once I finish up with Finn for the day, I’m ready to get back into the bigger projects.

Ugh. I sound like an advertisement for a writer’s workshop.

You know, it’s a Radio Flyer’s worth of fun, and I’m going to keep doing it until it isn’t. There.
 

The series concludes on Friday, 3/27, with a survey of writing projects undertaken on social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

Interview with Shelley Lieber on the Bright Future for Self Publishing

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The other week, publishing industry veteran Shelley Lieber, the subject of today’s interview, posted a thought-provoking comment on the Smashwords blog in response to my interview with Smashwords author Norman Savage.


She expressed concern Norman wasn’t pricing his book high enough given the quality of his novel. Her comment sparked an email thread between Shelley and myself, which led to a phone conversation, which led to today’s interview.
 

Shelley is the author of 4Ps to Publishing Success, now available at Smashwords, a book that educates authors about the art of writing and business of publishing.

In our exclusive interview, Lieber hints at a coming renaissance in self-publishing as authors and publishers alike begin to shed previously held misconceptions about the quality and potential of self-published books. As Lieber notes, the secrets to writing a great book remain the same, but the path to publishing and marketing a book are forever changed thanks to new publishing tools.

[Mark Coker] – Your experience in the publishing industry goes back 30 years, both as an author and as a book editor at Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Macmillan and McGraw-Hill. How has the industry changed in this time, and how have these changes impacted authors?

[Shelley Lieber] – The industry has probably changed more in the past two years than it has in the previous 50 to 75 years. Of all the creative industries, publishing is the most conservative and slowest to change. As technology advanced and became more readily available and affordable, individual artists in every creative field began to take on more responsibility for all areas of their craft. Authors were no exception; however, at first authors did not get the favorable response that film artists or musicians got from their respective industries or from the general public.

Everyone is probably familiar with the term “vanity press” and the accompanying insinuation that if one couldn’t get a traditional publisher’s stamp of approval, the work was unworthy so it had to be self-published. With the advent of print on demand (POD) printing and the easy accessibility of digital publishing in the form of ebooks on the Internet and now on ereaders such as Kindle, iPhone and more, everything has changed.

Faced with the prospect of spending years trying to get an agent, who then may take yet another year or more trying to find a publisher, who may take another 18 months to produce the book, which may not earn back the advance, ambitious authors looked for other avenues—and found them. People are publishing their own work, and getting their message out to their audiences using the new methods because it’s faster, easier and more effective than the traditional way.

A loose translation of Victor Hugo’s famous quote is, “An invasion of ideas cannot be resisted.” And while the majority of the old school publishing community dug in its heels and refused to budge, the rest of the world began to incorporate those new ideas. What we are witnessing in publishing today is the result of “an idea whose time has come.” The budget cutbacks, acquisitions freeze, restructuring and layoffs rampant in the publishing may have been hastened by the current economic situation, but were not caused by the recession. The old system wasn’t working, and the recession became a convenient label or excuse to explain it. Or, perhaps it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Either way, the changes are good for authors. I believe this is the beginning of a new era in publishing. In January of this year I declared 2009 as “The Year of The Author,” because there are more opportunities for publication today than ever before and it’s going to get even better.

[Mark Coker] – In our phone chat, you mentioned that just a couple years ago, you might not have recommended self-publishing to authors, yet now you do. What changed your opinion?

[Shelley Lieber] – I think what I said was that I would not have recommend self-publishing with the specific intention of attracting a traditional publisher and contract, because back then, self-publishing served more as a mark against you than for you, unless you had sold thousands of books. Today is a whole new market, however. Two things are working for the self-published author: one, is that there’s much more help available to make sure you put out a good book and the quality of self-publishing as a whole is rising. Second, with the limitations acquisition editors are facing—smaller budgets, celebrity authors not being guaranteed successes and memoir writers turning out to be liars and frauds—a “safe” bet is the self-published author who has sold 5,000 to 10,000 books on her own. Suddenly agents and editors are trolling the Internet in search of these self-published authors. Ironically, now successful indie authors are finding themselves being approached by the very publishers wouldn’t even return the SASE two years ago.

[Mark Coker] – In your view, what’s driving the rapid growth in self-publishing?

[Shelley Lieber] – More than anything else, technology is driving the rapid growth. People are doing it themselves because they can. It’s empowering to have artistic control over your work. And serious writers are taking the steps to do it in a professional manner. The stigma of “vanity” press is diminishing because the product is improving. Yes, there’s still tons of bad stuff being put out. But that will change. The cream always rises to the top. The poorly executed projects won’t sell and the fun of doing it won’t sustain. But, the books put out by authors who took the time and money to do it right will sell, make money and make a difference.

Plus, right now the DIY trend is huge. More and more, the focus is on favoring the little guy (or gal) making it, and it’s especially appealing to the public when it’s done in the face of the big, mean corporate machine. People are really tired of the demands and restrictions of bureaucracy and ever more ready to root for the underdog who triumphs in the face of obstacles. It’s sooo American dream. And if a book is good, it’s good. Most people don’t give a hoot who the publisher is if they like the book. The snobbery associated with traditional publishing is much less appealing and powerful than it was before.

[Mark Coker] – In the 4Ps to Publishing Success, you argue that authors need to treat their writing as a business. What do you mean by this?

[Shelley Lieber] – I encourage everyone to write; it’s a wonderful form of self-expression and helps individuals explore and examine their inner selves. Writing is a passion, a soul-driven activity. However, publishing is a business, and successful (VIP) authors know the difference. For some reason, perhaps because there’s no heavy machinery involved, people think all they need is a computer and printer and that makes them an author and publisher. Yet, these same people wouldn’t enter any other business on a whim. They would take classes, work in the field and perhaps seek the services of a coach or mentor. It must be the same for publishing.

The truth is that most mistakes first-time authors make are the result of one BIG error: not getting educated about the publishing process. So many people jump right in without knowing what they are doing. The result is they spend way too much time and money (or too little, thinking they can do it all themselves), and end up with inferior products because they didn’t know enough to make informed decisions.

I’m working with an author right now who came to me for marketing help just before she was going to press with her book. I asked her to wait until I saw her final file before going ahead with the printing. This is what I saw in her proof copy: an inferior photograph and uninspired graphic presentation on the front cover with poorly crafted back cover copy. The inside the pages were not designed well, either. The pagination was incorrect, and the title and copyright pages were not formatted correctly. The layout was amateurish. The header style changed from page to page, the paragraph indents were too wide and the inside margin was too narrow. The page layouts were dull without use of any graphic features, and it needed a good copyedit for style consistency and language use. That was on the first thumb-through.

Once I spot read a few chapters, I saw the book was a well-written, interesting and compelling read on a topic that would have broad appeal in the marketplace. But if she had gone ahead with that original file, she never would have garnered any attention or positive response because everything about it said unprofessional presentation. Even if you don’t have my professional eye, you would know just by looking at it that it was self-published.

I titled my book the 4Ps to Publishing Successbecause publishing is a four-part process: plan, produce, publish and promote. There is a right way and a wrong way. Just because you are self-publishing doesn’t mean you want to throw out all the conventional wisdom of how to do it. Education is the key. You don’t necessarily need to become a publishing professional to put out a good book on your own. You have to know enough, though, to know how to hire the right people to provide the right services without getting ripped off.

[Mark Coker] – In your comment on Norman’s interview, you wrote, "Writers do a disservice to the craft (and other writers) when they give away their work." Do you think authors are too quick to discount the value of their works, and too quick to embrace FREE as a marketing tool? And if so, how do you recommend authors compete against the growing number of free and low-cost alternatives to their books?

[Shelley Lieber] – I absolutely think that authors are too ready to give away their work. In the magazine industry, it’s not uncommon for publishers pay writers in copies of the magazine or as little a one or two cents per word. New writers are so eager to get their name in print, they often will give away their work. However, when writers undervalue their own work, it sends a message out that writing is not valuable. Typically, writers are underpaid for the amount of time and effort they put out, especially compared to other services such as design, illustration and photography—and that’s across all industries: publishing, advertising, public relations, etc.

This is not to be confused with writing free articles for ezine directories as a marketing strategy. Writers can employ “free” as a method that will serve to promote themselves and their work. For example, it makes sense to me to give away a chapter of a book via a free download on Smashwords. Or, offering a lower-cost ebook version of a book may lead to the reader purchasing the print version later on. Authors need to be creative using their writing talents: blogs, commenting on other people’s blogs, press releases, letters to the editor, etc are all ways to get make your name visible to the public and offer an opportunity to advertise your website or blog. Authors can give free tele-seminars, offer podcasts, create short videos for YouTube…there’s no end to what you can do for yourself. Create demand for your work, create value…and then you can charge what you’re worth.

[Mark Coker] – Thanks Shelley!

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Shelley Lieber’s 4Ps to Publishing Success at is available as a multi-format ebook at Smashwords for $5.99 by clicking this link: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1321

To learn more about Shelley, visit her Smashwords author page or visit her web site at http://wordywoman.com.

For authors interested in Shelley’s author mentoring services, check out the VIP Author’s Mentorship Program, where she offers a newsletter, weekly group teleconferences, and one-on-one consulting.

This interview was published the same day at the Smashwords Blog.